The United States of America hosted the World Cup this year in cities such as Boston, MA, and East Rutherford, New Jersey. People from across the globe came to American cities. Many people from different cultures met for the first time, both Americans meeting foreigners and vice versa. Foreigners got a firsthand look at American culture by seeing their home turf, but Americans only saw the foreigners without their culture. Asian tourists visiting the U.S. for the first time experienced heightened levels of Orientalism from Americans, who imposed their perceptions of Asian culture onto them. There are a lot of people who don’t interact with anybody outside of their home state, but that’s no reason to treat others with your skewed idea of culture.
A lot of Americans think Chinese people eat dogs regularly when in reality eating dogs has been on the decline in China and is generally frowned upon; however, people only remember “China eats dogs” and think every Chinese person likes to eat dogs, man’s best friend.
Same thing with Japanese people: many people idolize/infantilize Japanese people because they think anime reflects real life or a majority of their culture. There’s a vast amount of culture beyond modern media, but not everyone cares to learn. Even if this idea comes from a positive mindset, it’s not beneficial to idolize any group of people when you don’t know them.
There’s always nuance to things like this; some of it comes out of error, and some of it comes out of racism or bigotry. We should correct all of these regardless.
It’s 2026; we’ve made so much positive progress with getting rid of racist stigmas. It’s unfortunate to see orientalism rise up because people still have no idea how to treat others who are different from them. There will always be a cultural divide; not everyone wants to travel or learn about other cultures, but we should be polite and try to understand each other’s cultural norms and practices.
